


Flying Blind

by anythingbutblue



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 07:20:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anythingbutblue/pseuds/anythingbutblue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kara and Sam adjusting to life on New Caprica and life with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flying Blind

Kara sits upright in bed, jolting Sam out of sleep.

"What is it, baby?" he mumbles, hand brushing her thigh.

"It's raining."

He's silent for a moment as he tries to shove sleep to the side and understand, but he can easily hear the rain pelting the roof and sides of their tent. "Mm." As seconds pass he's increasingly aware of both the moisture on the air and how inviting it is when all she sleeps in is one of his few shirts.

She laughs. "It's raining."

"On you?" he asks, eyes still closed.

Her smile is audible as she disentangles herself from him and the blankets. "Not yet."

As she leaves the bed, snatching her cargo pants from their perch on the back of a chair, he finally sits up and opens his eyes to watch. "Are you that excited about the rain?"

"Sam," she barks out another laugh, shimmying into the pants, "ask me in a few months and I'll say no, but I haven't seen rain in a long time."

He can't say the same: he hasn't been calling a battlestar home since the attack. But once she escapes the tent, her bare feet shoved into her shoes, he gets out of bed to join her.

Outside in the dark early hours of the morning, he watches his wife turn her face up to meet the rain, her palms up. She turns toward him when he steps behind her, his arms encircling her, and she grins at him, fingers skimming tiny rivulets of rain off his chest.

"You look good half-naked in the rain, Sammy."

"You mean I didn't look good half-naked in bed?"

The tip of her tongue peeks between her lips. "That's not what I meant."

"Hey, if it'll lure you back inside I'm willing to lose the pants."

"Mmm," she hums, eyebrows arching suggestively. "I'm staying out one more minute." Puckering, she rises on the balls of her feet and gets in his face until he has no choice but to kiss her. "The pants better be off by the time I get back in."

He answers by raising his own eyebrows. "We'll see how long it takes you. If I get cold--"

"Sam, you are practically my own personal heater." Before she met him she thought she ran hot. "You're not going to get cold."

He shrugs, mostly teasing. "Take your chances."

"I will," she insists, stubborn, but she tips her chin up to steal another kiss off his lips before she steps backward and none of it stops him from giving her a sly pat on the ass that makes her smirk before he heads back inside.

Alone again, she looks up into the rain, wiping one hand up and over her face, then through her damp hair. Thick low clouds obscure the stars, but she knows Galactica's up there. She knows Vipers are up there.

Right this minute she doesn't miss that life at all.

*

They've been dabbling in booze since the shots of whiskey Scott offered them as he worked on their arms, and as they walk the dirt roads of the settlement the twin bandages on their arms are almost as much of a statement as bare tattoos. Sam tugs her closer and then gives up her hand so he can wrap an arm around her shoulders instead.

"How'd the wedding tats go?" Chief calls from the entryway to his tent.

Half-turning, Kara grins toothily and flexes her arm to showcase her bandage. "All inked up. He downed some whiskey and took it like a pro."

Sam laughs, fingers greedy on her shoulder. "Once a pro, always a pro."

Chief smirks. "Noticed your neighbors are out."

"Oho," Kara exhales a laugh, swinging herself in toward her husband until she can drape both arms over his shoulders. She knows some people say getting inked is painful, and she won't argue with that. But she knows pain, and a tattoo is nothing. She always feels twice as alive after getting inked, body thrumming, the blood in her veins singing out like she's a plucked string, wanting to soak her life in through every pore. Tonight she wants to drink until she's hilarious and frak Sam until he halfheartedly protests that he doesn't think he's physically capable of more, and it doesn't have to happen in that order. "What do you say, Sammy? Want to go be really loud in our tent?"

He leans into her like her gravity is too strong a force to avoid; her mouth is magnetic, and he places an indulgent kiss on her lips before he casts a look toward Chief. "Sorry, man. Got to go tend to the wife."

Wife, he says, and she's noticed over the past two weeks that he likes that word. He likes to call her that. When she first met him – before she met him, for that matter – she never would've guessed he was the marrying type, and that was something she considered a common thread for them. But here they are: husband and wife, bound together in the eyes of the gods, love branded in their arms. She doesn't have the first godsdamn clue about how to be a wife, but the last thing she wants to do is frak this up. 

"We'll be out in time for dinner and triad," she calls over her shoulder as she hooks her arm through Sam's.

Chief just barely refrains from snorting. "We won't wait up."

*

Even after a full month, sleeping through every night together in the same bed is weird. Sam takes to it faster than she does. If she gets into bed after him, he instinctively turns toward her, arm settling over her until his hand comes to rest on her waist or hip or breasts. She likes that. It doesn't take a die-hard C-Bucs fan to admit that Samuel T. Anders has a hot body – it's one of the first things she ever noticed about him – and sleeping pressed against him means she feels it every time the warmth and friction of her body has an effect, even when he's too asleep to do much about it.

Sometimes she wakes him up so he can.

Sometimes he wakes her up for it, like he can't frakking believe how lucky he is to be alive and here and sharing a bed with the pilot who rescued his pyramid-playing ass from the husk of Caprica. That's all right too.

What she doesn't always like is the mornings. Left to his own devices, without a pyramid practice to get to or a group of survivors looking up to him or a task to take on, Sam will happily roll over or under her for a lazy frak to welcome the day and then linger in bed with her, touching and talking, reading the fine lines of her body with his fingertips. Sometimes she indulges him, and sometimes she doesn't.

It's not that she doesn't like a good frak to kick-start the day, and it's not that she doesn't like Sam's company, either. It's that being married is different. Sleeping together every night is different. Having someone there every time you wake up is different. Being here is different.

Not hopping into a cockpit and walking that comfortable wire between brave and stupid on a daily basis is different.

Sam catches her looking up into the sky one day, one hand shading her eyes against the sun, and he walks up beside her, mirroring her pose as he joins her in watching the sky. "Miss it?"

"Like a limb." She presses her lips together after the words come out, too little too late. Her eyes slant in his direction, but he doesn't seem insulted in any way.

"That," he says after a second, "is how I feel about pro pyramid."

"The flying, anyway," she goes on, unable to be less honest despite feeling compelled not to leave things there. "Not the CAPs or the teaching or taking orders."

Letting his arm fall to his side, Sam turns toward her, studying her profile. "Kara, it's okay to miss it."

Her gut instinct is to argue that she doesn't; the need to protest and prove him wrong burns white-hot in her chest, but she knows arguing here would make her a liar. Tonguing the corner of her mouth, she lets her eyebrows rise and fall in reluctant acknowledgment.

"It'd be more surprising if you tried to tell me you didn't." As he sidesteps closer, his arm rubs against hers. "I wouldn't believe you for a second."

A small smile flickers on her face for a moment before she bares her teeth at him. "So understanding. You C-Bucs learn that at training camp? Should've concentrated on scoring points."

He laughs, catching her wrist and tugging her in. "You just wait until we get the court set up."

"The anticipation's killing me." Her kiss catches him right on the jaw.

*

Freshly showered after a long day of work on the apartment building, Sam joins the party at the makeshift bar in time to notice her standing a little too close, a little too friendly, to a broad-shouldered shaggy-haired guy he knows by face but not by name. He stops for a drink of his own before he walks over to join her, and it's gratifying when she flashes him an extra large grin and turns her attention his way, one possessive hand groping its way up his arm.

"There's my favorite C-Buc." She moves in, a predator ready for the kill, and her lips taste like booze when they part against his. "Don't drink too much, Sammy. I don't want you passing out on me."

"Hey," he interrupts, pointing one finger at her, "that's only happened one time."

"It was the worst possible time," she snorts.

"I didn't notice it keeping you from marrying me." 

Her mouth twists, hard to read, but he grins and reels her in to drop a kiss on her forehead before he knocks back some of the rotgut.

*

The New Caprican summer glowed golden with warmth, but the fall doesn't play around. Mornings are ushered in by a bitter foggy chill that makes everyone want to stay in bed until the sun is out in full force. Kara's brave early morning jog ends with her crawling, sweatpants and all, back into bed with Sam twenty minutes later. He welcomes her with an arm wrapping around her, and she burrows her face into his neck.

"Frak, your nose is cold."

"Yeah." The closest she gets to apologizing is the kiss she presses against his pulse. "Was gonna paint outside, but I'll wait until my fingers and toes thaw." To demonstrate the need, she finds his midsection and plasters her icy hands to bare skin.

At first he jerks away –"Gods, Kara." – but then he covers her fingers with his free hand. "How'd your pigments turn out yesterday?"

"Next time'll be better." She shrugs. "The red and orange are pulpy."

"Bet I could find a set of real ready-to-use paints for you. There's this guy, Joe, from the Zephyr; I swear he has a stockpile of crap you never would've imagined needing."

Amused, she huffs out a breath. "You just want me to save the edible stuff for when you're around to be the canvas."

"That's only a fringe benefit," he explains. "Just say the word."

Pushing herself up, the blankets draped over her shoulders like a heavy cape, she kneels on the bed. "Take your clothes off."

"What?"

"Come on, Sammy. We're both free, it's too cold outside, and the paint's right over there." With a shark-like grin, she pats his side to spur him on, then climbs over him and out of bed again to collect her little jars of pigment. "No time like the present."

"You gonna share the paint?"

"You know I suck at sharing," she teases, dipping a fingertip in thick liquid blue and dotting his nose with it, "but for you, Samuel T., I can make an exception."

It's all the guarantee he needs.


End file.
